Uber In Deal With GM's Cruise To Offer Robotaxis Next Year

(RTTNews) - Uber Technologies, Inc. and Cruise LLC, the autonomous vehicle company owned by General Motors Co., are joining to offer Cruise autonomous vehicles through the Uber platform.

The companies, which are revolutionizing transportation, agreed on a multiyear strategic partnership that will be launched next year. Under the deal, a number of Chevy Bolt-based autonomous vehicles will be offered for Uber users.

Once launched, when an Uber rider requests a qualifying ride on the Uber app, they may be presented with the option to have that trip fulfilled by a Cruise autonomous vehicle.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO, said, "As the largest mobility and delivery platform, we believe Uber can play an important role in helping to safely and reliably introduce autonomous technology to consumers and cities around the world."

Further, Marc Whitten, CEO of Cruise, added that the company is on a mission to leverage driverless technology to create safer streets and redefine urban life, and that it expects to offer the benefits of safe, reliable, autonomous driving to Uber users.

Uber, which started in 2010, so far has completed more than 52 billion trips. By changing how people, food, and things move through cities, Uber is a platform that opens up the world to new possibilities, it noted.

In late July, Uber signed a multi-year strategic partnership with Chinese EV maker BYD Co. Ltd. that would bring 100,000 new BYD electric vehicles onto the Uber platform across key global markets. Beginning first in Europe and Latin America, the partnership will be expanded to include markets across the Middle East, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Cruise, which was founded in 2013, and majority owned by General Motors since 2016, had paused all its driverless operations in the United States since October last year, following an accident in which a pedestrian was struck and dragged by a Cruise vehicle in San Francisco.

Following the accident, the state of California had suspended the firm's license to operate driverless cars, and the company faced a probe by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Amid the safety review of its U.S. fleet, Kyle Vogt, CEO and Co-Founder of Cruise, and co-founder Dan Kan resigned from the firm, which also dismissed nine key executives.

However, Cruise in April this year announced its plan to resume manual driving, after making significant progress, as the next step in return to fully driverless operations.

Prior to the pause in operations, Cruise had provided hundreds of thousands of driverless trips to riders on complex city streets in San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin, Houston and elsewhere.

As of June 2024, Cruise has resumed supervised autonomous driving in Phoenix, AZ, Houston and Dallas, TX, in addition to its ongoing testing in Dubai.

Along with GM, Cruise has received funding from other major companies and investors, including Honda, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, and Walmart.